A mom who reported her 4-year-old daughter missing actually kept her dead body in garbage bags for weeks, Tennessee police said.
Sequoia Samuels, 4, was reported missing from her Memphis home on June 15 by her mother, Brittney Jackson, 24, News previously reported.
Local and state authorities conducted a day long search for Sequoia, who had a feeding tube inserted in her side for an unspecified medical condition, before announcing that a body had been found near Jackson’s apartment, according to a June 16 news release from the Memphis Police Department.
Jackson and her boyfriend, Jaylon Hobson, 21, were taken into custody, according to court records.
In arrest affidavits later released, Jackson told police she had given a false statement when she told officers she had found Sequoia’s room empty and the front door of the apartment ajar.
She told police her boyfriend, who lived at the home with Jackson and her children, had “physically attacked” Sequoia “multiple times” weeks before Jackson reported her missing, according to the affidavit.
Jackson told police Sequoia became unresponsive after the last attack, and Hobson tried to revive her, but the 4-year-old died, according to the affidavit.
Police said Hobson put Sequoia’s body in trash bags that the couple then stored in their apartment.
“Jackson maintained the corpse for several weeks,” police said, before the bags were “dumped in (a) garbage container and moved to the East side of the apartment with other garbage cans,” where her body was found by officers.
The medical examiner collected the child’s remains and Jackson was able to positively identify the clothes Sequoia was wearing at the time she was hidden in the trash bags, according to the affidavit.
Jackson was charged with false offense report, aggravated child abuse and abuse of a corpse on June 16, according to court records.
Hobson was charged with false offense report on June 16 after telling police he had seen Sequoia on June 11, which police said was impossible given the degree of composition of the child’s body.
Jackson appeared in court on June 20 where her bond was set at $500,000, according to a live stream posted on Facebook by WMC.